Black Monday 2012

It's basically cut-down day for NFL front offices. Today, I will keep updating this page with links to the latest firing news throughout this depressing day.

-First is the New York Jets, who fired GM Mike Tannenbaum. The news is not much of surprise, but the current decision to keep Rex Ryan is getting mixed reviews. The Jets have had difficulty rebuilding their defensive line and their offense had no depth at wide receiver before injuries wiped out a good portion of players from camp.

-The Philadelphia Eagles were next. Another disappointing year for a talented team may lead to the dismissal of Andy Reid. It may not be official yet, but all signs point to the end of 14 years as Eagles coach. He won 7 division titles in his time. UPDATE: Eight minutes after this post.....Reid fired.

-Gene Smith is out in Jacksonville. Reports on Sunday had the head coach in limbo as well. The Jags have what many consider the least-talented roster in the league. There are developing players in each side of the ball, but not enough to make up for 7 wins in two seasons.

-Romeo Crennel will take his 28-55 career record to the unemployment line , ending a season of bad play and heart-breaking news. The surprise so far is that Scott Pioli is supposed to keep his position. Perhaps all that spy equipment he put up in the offices has paid off.

-The Browns are starting over again. Early reports are stating Cleveland interest in names such as Bruce Arians, Jon Gruden and Chip Kelly.

-The Norv Turner Show has been cancelled. GM A.J. Smith is supposed to be out as well. The Chargers, once one of the most talented in the league, have seen talent leave or retire with no real replacements coming forward. In six years as Chargers coach, his high water mark was a 13-3 season in 2009. Since then, the team fell to nine wins in 2010 and then lost another win each season after that.

-UPDATE: 10:47am- Ian Rappaport of the NFLN has tweeted that Lovie Smith is out in Chicago. Adam Shefter tweeted that Bears have asked to speak with coaches. News happened during the Jay Cutler Show on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. That made for some great radio.

-UPDATE: 1:19pm- The meeting with Ken Whisenhunt went long in Arizona. Rod Graves is the one who is out. Graves had been with the team since 1997 and been GM since 2002. Whoops. Reports now say that Whisenhunt is out as well.

If the GM is a salary cap guru and not a talent eval, that's OK, but fans would like to know WHO is the talent eval final responsibility.

So they can hang the right person in effigy.

Agreed - I live in St. Louis and I have observed firsthand how disastrous it can be when no one person has final responsibility for personnel decisions. The Rams allowed Dick Vermeil to 'retire' after the Superbowl win, and then some non-football people (like executive John Shaw, and an accountant/cap guy named Zygamut) started to meddle in football decisions. The lines of authority around personnel became unclear for about six years, and the Rams became one of the least talented teams in the NFL over that time. They found some decent players under GM Billy Devaney but success did not come fast enough and he was fired, along with HC Steve Spagnolou.

Now, the Rams have a experienced personnel voice in GM Les Snead, who apparently is meshing well with HC Jeff Fisher - their first draft in 2012 is looking pretty decent right now. I guess you could call it a 'strong coach/strong GM' model, where the coach has a clear idea of what type of team he is building, and the GM does a good job (along with the scouts) of finding the right players for those systems. Snead has final authority, but clearly he and Fisher are on the same page with their personnel choices.

The Browns are apparently trying to follow this same model (as much as we can tell from the owner's comments), and it can work well if the right people are hired for both coach and GM. Even as a Steelers fan, I wish the Browns well in their rebuilding process; I think this ownership change will end up being a good thing for the team on and off the field.

The Lions suffered from diffused personnel decisions after Russ Thomas died.
Thomas was a lousy GM, but he made the calls. The owner, Will.i.lost, couldn't fire people and Russ was his friend and William owed him big time personally, so Russ stayed. Then when Russ died, the org chart went nuts.

That's why bringing in Millen wasn't a bad idea. The real problem was that after 2-3 years, it was clear Millen stunk, but Ford couldn't fire anyone.

Clear understand of who you should fire when a team is talent poor is essential, but then you have to FIRE them and try somebody else.

Give me an owner who is a self made bastard anyday, rather than an inheritance wimp.

The only thing you need to know about Ford, is that his family kicked him out of the car business because he didn't come up to the standards of Executive Management of the US Auto Industry.

I guess you could call it a 'strong coach/strong GM' model, where the coach has a clear idea of what type of team he is building, and the GM does a good job (along with the scouts) of finding the right players for those systems. Snead has final authority, but clearly he and Fisher are on the same page with their personnel choices.

I was in St. Louis for John Shaw, a lawyer who had no business meddling in football matters.

I agree with you about synergy. In order to be successful, an organization must have a vision of the kind of football they want to play and the kind of players they want to have. Coach and GM must be in sync. You can't win otherwise.

Pittsburgh is a good example of this. So too are the New York Giants. New England famously drafts for character. Under Dimitroff, the Falcons are trying to set the same kind of standard.

For me, it begins with a GM who believes in a certain philosophy and who hires a head coach who shares that philosophy. From there, they work together to make it happen. Top down management with a common vision.

If you're a top candidate for a head coach job, do you decline the job if there's no QB on the horizon?

On the one hand, there are only 32 of these jobs. They're precious and valuable. On the other hand, what's the point if you're only going to be fired?

I'm thinking Whisenhunt and Buffalo, but it might as well be Reid and Arizona, or anybody and KC.

And given the above, aren't Chicago and San Diego the most coveted jobs?

I dunno. Pete Carroll took a job in Seattle with no real QB. Same with Jim Harbaugh and San Francisco. A QB that you can work with is certainly a plus, but it isn't the only factor. How much control does the coach have in player personnel? Does the team have personnel that the coach can best utilize to fit his style of play.

Buffalo, Arizona and Kansas City are not highly desirable jobs, but I don't think a top coach will necessarily turn down these jobs.

An interesting trend in the NFL is the power sharing between coach and GM. There has never been a hard-and-fast rule about this, but generally the accepted structure was that the GM hired the coach.

Today Clark Hunt said that in order to attract top coaches, you have to give them more power and have them report directly to the owner. By the looks of it, it's not just successful NFL coaches who can demand this kind of power. It sure sounds like Nick Saban and Chip Kelly can too.

Is this a fad, or an enduring and fundamental shift in how the NFL does business?

Just want to go on record as saying I like how the Chargers have gone about their business. Mostly, that's because they've followed the Standard Model.

They hired a GM who has a reputation for finding good players. And they let him hire the head coach.

It could fail, of course. Neither man has held his job before. They are unknown quantities. But I like the method. It signals an ordered structure to how the Chargers do business.

I'm less enthused about the direction San Diego has taken than you are. I am a fan of the Mike McCoy hire, but I have my doubts about Tom Telesco. You said he has a reputation for finding good players, but didn't they just go 2-14 a year ago and have to blow up the entire roster because of how poorly it had been constructed the couple years prior? That being said, I also wonder how much power or influence in decision-making that Telesco actually had while Polian was in charge.

I'm less enthused about the direction San Diego has taken than you are. I am a fan of the Mike McCoy hire, but I have my doubts about Tom Telesco. You said he has a reputation for finding good players, but didn't they just go 2-14 a year ago and have to blow up the entire roster because of how poorly it had been constructed the couple years prior? That being said, I also wonder how much power or influence in decision-making that Telesco actually had while Polian was in charge.

I'm one foot in and one foot out on telesco and how he affected the previous roster that was blown up. How much of that was telesco and how much was dumb polian decisions? Likewise with the change over. How much was telesco and how much was the new regime? None of us will ever know the answers to these questions about this guy until he's got a few draft and fa classes behind his job title of being "the guy".

I guess we all sit and wait for a few years to see.. no other way to discern a credible answer to that question, at least no other way to do so without being an NFL insider in the good ol boys club.

Trust me, from that level of management, no one knows much outside the inner circle. It's a tight club, and those in it protect their own. No different than executive level management in my sector. We protect our own in the same way.

Until they see the light of day as ""the guy" no one outside that circle has any idea of the guys ability. The circle precludes that, simply because they can. Once he's "the guy" in the public light, they can no longer shelter him. His actions are 100% out there for all to see. He's gotta stand on his own on his big boy legs.

Yeah, we talked a couple different QBs on your team. It certainly worked out much better staying put and drafting Mariota. He looks much more like the real deal with an average receiving corps. Good...